How To Practice In All 12 Keys - This Is What You Learn

How to practice in all 12 keys and what will it teach you! In this video I am going to show you some of the things that you will learn if you start practicing in all 12 keys and talk about some easy ways to get started practicing different things in all 12 keys from your scales to complete songs.

The video focuses on 3 main areas:

- Technique - knowing scales and arpeggios all over the instrument and in all keys.
- Theory - You can play everything in all keys but can you think in all keys - connecting the theory to what you practice
- Songs - Taking Technique and the theory and use it to learn, understand and transpose songs and help us learn faster and improvise better.

Content of the video:
0:00 Intro
0:13 Overview of the Topics
1:04 #1 Technique And Scale Practice
1:39 Making a Routine That uses all 12 keys
2:08 How I do this
2:33 Example of Eb Major with 1st inversion diatonic triads
3:08 Scale Practice as Ear Training and Theory Workout
3:44 #2 Music Theory
4:11 Understanding harmony to see how songs are similar
4:29 All The Things You Are & Fly Me To The Moon
5:02 Understanding the Form - There Will Never Be Another You/Mellow Tone
5:45 #3 Learning Songs in All 12 Keys - Myths and Anecdotes
6:08 How to Start Practicing songs in all 12 Keys
6:36 How NOT to start
6:51 The Way I use it in playing
7:25 How to Transpose All The Things You Are To Another Key
7:45 The Melody
8:05 Transposing the Chords
9:00 Soloing in the other key
9:38 The places where you need to take care
10:33 What you need to do this on guitar?
10:45 Like The Video? Check out my Patreon Page

✅DOWNLOAD A FREE E-BOOK with 15 II Valt I licks!
Sign up for my newsletter:

Snapchat: jenslarsenjazz

My Gear:

[JensLarsen]

Do you practice in all 12 keys? What do you work on? 🙂

[bobblues]

The ability to play in every key gives me the freedom to fly in the universe of sound that we call music. Knowing the number system is the
easiest way for me to organise the names of the sounds. Been doing it since i was 16 and I am 73 now. it is still fun and the
vibe of each key takes my fantasy to new places. It will open your ears-I promise!

[sweetoldetc]

I've noticed that the better I get at playing in different keys, the more I rely on my ear to guide my playing. I am no longer thinking theory, interval, or what chord I am playing, but instead, I am just hearing the tune in my head and my hand can find my way through the instrument in that key. I guess you can say that it's a more "direct" way of playing where you are just reacting to what you are hearing, and IMO that's what music is really about, and it feels so much more genuine and connected than just reading through changes and playing.

As much as lead sheets have helped me learn the music as a beginner, I've come to realize that it can be a clutch and can really hold you back from developing once you get to a certain point... and the people I listened to recorded didn't learn it that way either because lead sheets simply didn't exist back then. I can understand now why some teachers and musicians I met had a real disdain for using charts to play standards, and I really wish I got off that habit sooner, because jazz is really meant to be played by ear.

[vishyoutubevideos]

wow...I never knew Angus is such a great jazz player!

[dougnickerson]

Mark Levine, in, "the Jazz piano book, " says he occasionally picks a finished arrangement - takes it through 12 keys: intro, voicings, licks, ending - just as in the original arrangement. Then he chooses one new key and plays the piece in that new key at the next gig. I tend to learn a piece in at least one other key after I have it memorized in the first key. I had one piano teacher who would learn a piece a fourth up, he said that helped with singers because a fourth up you could in that way get closer to a key the singer might be comfortable with. He also said, when a singer wanted to play in B, " not in this house, " he'd say . . 😀

[alessandrobernardi]

you are one of the best guitar channels here on youtube. Being a metalhead you really opened my eyes on many many things.. i think i love jazz now :) thank you jens!

[tomcripps]

I knew this day was coming. I've started a little. I play Wave in D so my alternative key is G. Kind of like flipping everything upside down and like you say you start noticing that many of these standards aren't as different from one another as they seem. Great video Jens.

[argonunya]

When it comes to jazz, you and Scott of Scott's bass lessons are the two I go to.

[hino-ucanada]

I do practice in all keys... but often neglect my flats and sharps. I am trying to learn my theory to move beyond the patterns and playing by ear to really knowing all my scales in all the different keys off by heart and bridging the gap between theory and execution... glad I just recently found your channel Jens!

[jackb]

Loved this video! I'm guilty of sticking to favored keys. Really liked the part about playing behind vocalists. Got firsthand knowledge of this in Las Vegas in the late 1980s. When you hear a vocalist saying, "a-hem, a-hem", you know you're abut to transpose the song to another key!

[mikehughes]

Superb as always. Provides an understandable way into a daunting but essential technique.

[JohnWilson-ruxd]

Another excellent video Jens!
Really like the use of graphics to highlight the chords of the tune while being able to see how you were negotiating these on the neck of the guitar. Really helpful for myself as a beginner with regards jazz guitar.
Brilliant work Jens!

[KennethGonzalez]

Just completed my prank call to Kenny G! I think of it as "community service"

Great video, Jens!

[samriehl]

Thank you for spliting this up into 3 main ariers

[CJ-ckkk]

haha Angus the jazz cat!! great video and as always many great tips. will keep us mortals busy for the next century or so....btw, the progression and licks you are playing over the vid is based on Back in Black, right?

[simonfivez]

Very good lesson and very nice edits, more of this please :D

[GiovanniBottaMuteWinter]

I have a really hard time not relying on the visual and position memory when it comes to transposing. And I know that knowing the notes is way more useful when improvising but I am still working on knowing notes, not positions.

[WillKriski]

Love the Angus clip. I use tessitura pro now

[DSpeir-pitm]

All 12 keys have got me on my knees . It makes me sly and that's no lie ;)

[moonsama]

What I struggle with personally is for example switching from a key to another in the same position, would this help?